2019 Summer Trip To South Dakota

[JEBar]

while camping with our club last weekend, a bit of a weird lighting issue .... when we got up Saturday morning, my wife found the globe on a 12V OEM wall "Sconce" installed in October of 2005 had broken .... cause ===> no clue but I suspect that 14 years of heating and cooling may have something to do with it .... replacement ordered from Amazon, it has arrived and has been installed .... it took a bit of delicate adjusting with a heavy pair of channel locks but I was able to make the OEM mounting bracket work .... that's a good thing, sure made the install quicker and easier .... wiring colors matched which also helped, it passed the smoke test .... the LED light is much brighter than the OEM 921 bulb .... my wife is happy with it, that's what matters the most .. .. the only thing I could salvage off of the OEM fixture is its red on/off button


once the upgrade of the forums server is complete I'll come back and post pictures, can't get any to upload right now

[JEBar]

one month from tomorrow we are scheduled to arrive in Estelline .... we've reached the point were we have taken care of all known issues with our camper and truck .... as usual at this point, paranoia is now setting in .... our thoughts are drifting into the what should we replace that's working right now but might cause trouble on the trip territory .... we are still a couple of weeks from repacking the camper's basement to remove winter/Texas items and replace them with summer/Estelline items ....

[JEBar]

with the forecasted today being 82 and for it to jump to 95 over the weekend, today will be a busy one .... it should take an hour or so to remove Texas items from the camper's basement, vacuum the area, and pack South Dakota items .... notice I said should, history says it ain't likely to get done that quickly .... we continue to monitor the weather in the areas we are planning to pass through .... some have been hard hit with spring rains and now with heavy storms .... its been a tough spring in the are where we spend the summers .... its been so wet that many farmers will not be able to plant their fields .... sure hope things settle down quickly .....

[JEBar]

reports of flooding in the Midwest abound .... the pictures below are of Lake Poinsett which is located about 7 miles west of Estelline, SD where we spend our summers .... the first was taken on April 17th, the rest were taken yesterday .... parts of HWY 28 which runs from Estelline to the lake are flooded .... as are sections of roads on all 4 sides of the lake

[JEBar]

up to 25" of snow in the Black Hills yesterday ...

https://www.kotatv.com/content/news/Hea ... 64011.html

[markiver54]

Wow! Glad I'm not in that area. Would think it's a bit late for that, even out there!

[Mags]

looks like you should take a boat with you, just in case.

[JEBar]

one of my wife's brothers has a nice boat .... we use it to fish Lake Poinsett, Lake Albert, and several others in the area .... mostly trolling for walleyes and small mouth bass


https://www.lakepoinsett.org/

[JEBar]

as anticipated, removing Texas items, cleaning/vacuuming, packing Estelline items took more time than anticipated .. .. the good news is, I found some tools that I knew were in the basement but had no clue where .. .. with the exception of applying a thin coat of grease to the pin, greasing the zerks on the hitch, washing the truck's windows, and taking on fuel, normal packing is all that remains ....

[Mags]

.
Look like the lakes are a great place to "make a memory" or several.

one of my wife's brothers has a nice boat .... we use it to fish Lake Poinsett, Lake Albert, and several others in the area .... mostly trolling for walleyes and small mouth bass

https://www.lakepoinsett.org/

[JEBar]

Look like the lakes are a great place to "make a memory" or several.

over the years it most certainly has been and continues to be ....it is located in a beautiful setting .... a few sunset pictures taken a few years ago when we camped out there

[JEBar]

two weeks from tomorrow we are due to hit the road .... not each day but most days between now and then we need to purchase and pack a wide range of supplies for both the truck and camper .... most will be purchased next Wednesday when we make a stop at the local Sam's .... where we spend the summer its a 160+ mile round trip to the closest Sam's .... with our truck, it literally pays to minimize such drives .... so, we make it a point to stock up on consumable supplies prior to leaving home .... today's purchase of two 80 oz jugs of Diesel Kleen was a minor one .... they should take care of treating all of our fuel that our truck will burn between now and when we get to South Dakota .... history tells us that we will need to purchase one more jug just prior to leaving so as to have more than enough to get us home ....

[JEBar]

in our progression through months, then weeks, now days to June 8th, when we are scheduled to leave home and head west, today has been a GOLD STAR DAY .... that following a thorough going over this morning by my Cardiologist it has been determined that all systems are go .. .. next appointment set for 6 months with no changes to meds or anything else .. .. to make it even better, no further medical appointments of any kind are scheduled until after we get back home in August .... we did get to Sam's and left there with about all our Trailblazer can haul .... it will take a while to get 3 months worth of paper products and other items stored .... with record breaking heat on tap for tomorrow, we probably won't get out there to store things for a few days

[markiver54]

in our progression through months, then weeks, now days to June 8th, when we are scheduled to leave home and head west, today has been a GOLD STAR DAY .... that following a thorough going over this morning by my Cardiologist it has been determined that all systems are go .. .. next appointment set for 6 months with no changes to meds or anything else .. .. to make it even better, no further medical appointments of any kind are scheduled until after we get back home in August .... we did get to Sam's and left there with about all our Trailblazer can haul .... it will take a while to get 3 months worth of paper products and other items stored .... with record breaking heat on tap for tomorrow, we probably won't get out there to store things for a few days

Good idea to wait it out a day or two Jim, this has been some oppressive heat!

[JEBar]

the good news is, our camper has a couple of strong AC's .... the bad news is, they ain't cheap to run on 100 degree days ..

[JEBar]

9 days until we are scheduled to pull out .... its been a busy morning .... paper products and other items purchased yesterday at Sam's have been stored .... we were able to make some room in some of the interior storage cabinets by removing items that we simply don't use .... we also removed the insulation cushions from all three ceiling vents and put them in storage .... my wife has shampooed most of the carpet .... tomorrow we will move furniture and she will finish the carpet ....

[JEBar]

8 days to go .... my wife finished shampooing the camper's carpet .... it will never look new but it sure looks better .... on tap later today a hopefully quick trip to a family range to zero our 300 WBY Mag that will be taken on the trip and fired at our gathering in KC .... as is to be expected, today's pre-trip efforts were interrupted by needing to take care of 3 grandchildren this morning and pickup another from daycare later today .... those who live near their grandchildren will understand ..

[JEBar]

7 days from right now we should be setup in Asheville, NC following our first day's drive .... the long range forecast is calling for the temp to be in the upper 70's with a 50% chance of thunderstorms .... first thing this morning we drove over to Benson where we picked up more sausage to smoke .. .. after getting it back home loading it in our smoker, things settled down for a very sort while .... our youngest son came over and we took the boat out of mothballs .... she fired up and he drove off to run it through a car wash, they plan to spend the day tomorrow at a local lake.... while we were working on the boat, I put our oldest grandson to mowing .. .. we now have 20 more lbs of smoked sausage, the boat runs great and the yard has been mowed .... some days are truly better than others ..

[JEBar]

a while back flooded sections of I-29 north of KC forced us to reroute our trip .... looks like it is a good thing we did


https://weather.com/news/weather/video/ ... ince-march

[JEBar]

a new concern has surfaced .... we've just learned that flooding earlier this month has closed I-29 from KC to Omaha ..... in looking at the recommended detour, we may well have to change our entire projected route out there .... info related to this closing from folks living in and/or familiar with that area would be appreciated

the above was posted back in April .... continued rains has brought almost continuous flooding to sections of I-29 between KC and Omaha .... as a result we have changed our route, our new path can be seen in post 1 in this thread .... right now my concern is the flooding near Davenport, IA .... we aren't scheduled to go through there until the 12th, hopefully things will have settled down a bit by then

in addition, our return route has been changed to accommodate the KC and St Louis gatherings